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Dear Kat,

The other night, you talked about what happens when both of us are present – that it allows something to be created.  I know you wrote about it, but I wanted to try in my own words.

So what do I understand by that term?  That what we do together, whether it be sex or words or mute hanging out, is different from ever before, is completely unique in some way that hasn’t normally applied in my life.*  Here, I struggle for words.  The personal experience is one of power, of centered-ness, of balance.  Additionally, there is the joint experience of we, the sense that you and I are experiencing the same thing, and I don’t just mean sitting on the edge of the canyon watching the same sunset together, but a much stronger connection, as if we have joined circuits and the energy flows through us in a circle.

OK, I’m mixing metaphors and I don’t know if anyone else can follow this at all.

Kit

* I use the past tense because by being with you, that sense of presence is more and more in the rest of my life.

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Dear Kat,

I have been musing for months on the nature of self and the idea that the universe is a unity, and have a number of ideas and data points for this.

It’s a unity at the same time as being divided and classified.  This is at odds with Aristotelian logic, so we find it hard to accept, and the appearance of division is so strong that we consistently fail to see the united aspects of the world.  Aristotelian logic has been completely refuted at the quantum level, where photons can be conclusively shown to be either particle and wave, depending on what experiment is done, but we are reluctant to accept the simultaneous existence of opposites in the world.

We think we’re just ourselves, but we are in fact a collection of 300-1000 species of microflora, which perform a host of useful functions for us.  We think we are self-sufficient like Robinson Crusoe, but very few of us could survive alone.  We think we know who we are, but we constantly use other people as mirrors in which to see our reflection.

The Eastern religions teach that the self is an illusion.

Maybe the joint experience that you and I routinely have is actually quite common, but just not recognised and acknowledged.  For instance, people may experience it when ballroom dancing, singing in a choir, acting as a mob or playing music together.  Without a mental model, however, the experience has no chance of being observed, and even when looking, the bright light of the ego can obscure that subtle, simultaneous sense.

Kit

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Dear Kat,

I agree about needing to be suited to the other.  I don’t want to make a list of areas, as it’s probably different for everyone.  But once those are met, that’s the time to leave well enough alone, to let the other person be who they are, and we do that so well!  I am amazed again and again at how we do that.

Recognising this suitability and giving it priority is a difficult thing to do early in life because there is also sexual attraction that is so powerful, yet seems completely independent of other elements.  I have seen people drawn again and again to a completely unsuitable relationship, though in several cases I’m thinking of, I can’t say how much it was sex and how much a working through of some childhood relationship.

So yes, we’re very suited, though I haven’t got a list in my head of what those reasons might be.  Like many things between us, I seem to have made decisions at some subconscious level.  In fact, both of us seem able to trust our subconscious/intuition/whatever name you wish to use.  The first trip to Europe is a good example of that.  This intuitive element is very important, and maybe other people ignore it and instead focus on things like similar interests.  They’re important, though it doesn’t have to be a complete match, but interests alone don’t cut it.  There has to be some – gee, I’m inclined to get cosmic here and say energy or harmony or something that decribes a resonance of some sort between people.  And there also needs to be a similarity of world view – people, politics, religion – or at least, no radical differences.

Kit

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Dear Kat,

I loved our conversation the other night about criticism.

I read recently how damaging criticism is — that we need 5 compliments to offset a single criticism. But any criticism is an attempt to change the other person, to say that they are not perfect, that you don’t accept certain shapes or sounds or behaviors. The other person may compromise, attack in return, withdraw, or brush it off, but whatever the response, the action is pernicious; it makes one guarded, it eats at the soul. Every criticism of another is a denial of who they are, and a non-acceptance of the same. I’ve broken up with a number of people feeling that I had lost myself; I no longer knew who I was or what I wanted.

This has an effect on the critic, too. They are yearning after something, they cannot live in the world as it is, they cannot accept their partner as is, they want more better, different. In short, they are captured by the past, and cannot be present.

—-====—-

I know you much prefer positive conversations, so let me talk about the opposite. With you, there is nothing like that. I feel so at liberty to be myself, and this co-exists with a companionship that is so free and easy. There is a peculiar paradox here: by being still, by not struggling for what we think we want, we get closer and closer. It is as if we are naturally drawn to one another, yet any action causes a movement away from the center. The more still we are, the more we partake in a harmonious flow through life.

Kit

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Dear Kat,

You ask some very good questions.  It is strange; we know so clearly that we are doing something unusual, and we know the things that we do, but we don’t know how we do them.

And yet “do” is almost the wrong term, because there is no sense of effort; things happen effortlessly, again and again and again.  It is as if there is a path through life called the present that is clear and easy to walk.  To left and right, the past and the future have barbs, snares, pits of tar, that make progress so much more difficult.

Pardon my metaphor.  I don’t know how useful it is in our discussion, but I had this incredibly strong image.

So it is hard to say “do”, because the sense of being centered and and of action flowing from that is very strong.  I loved your writing about the center; it really is central to what we’re doing.  Another metaphor that often arise for me is that of riding a bicycle; once one has learned to balance, it is so easy and effortless.

I guess we have to speak of things in such a way that other can say “Oh yes, I recognise that,” and I’m looking forward to putting it out and see what responses we get.  You’re less driven than me towards this, I think.

Kit

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My Dear Kat,

I feel a need to start pulling together the principles we’ve been discovering through self-observation.

• Make no demands
• Be present
• Speak the truth
• Be consistent (though I don’t know how an inconsistent person is expected to carry this out)
• Do as you would be done by (a reference to The Water Babies)

That’s not very many, and maybe 2 and 3 are the same thing, expressed differently.  But maybe we’re not in the business of collecting as many aphorisms as possible; it might be the opposite, of reducing it to a few guidelines and explanations of how they apply in a variety of situations.

For comparison, the couple we saw had three rules:

• Speaking the Truth
• Taking Healthy Responsibility
• Expressing Appreciation

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My Dear Kat,

The experience of our union has some peculiar properties, notably that you and I report the same thing.  When one of us proffers a description, the other says “Uh-Huh” in agreement.  Pretty much always.  Now you and I have led different lives, have different bodies with sex organs of different types, and whose nervous systems are not connected.  So either there’s a lot of coincidence going on, or WE’RE HAVING THE SAME EXPERIENCE.  We approach so close, we are so in touch, literally and metaphorically, that we are both conscious of the shape and extent of the boundary between us.  I don’t mean boundary in the “barrier, blockage, unavailable” sense, but that of junction, connection, surface.  It exists in meta-space (no time to explain that now), and we both see its shape, albeit from opposite sides, and so we recognise our pattern in the other.

Maybe I’m getting to lyrical and theoretical there.  I don’t experience it like that.  Instead, I’m in quiet agreement with you as you speak.  Always.  Oh, there may be some straightening out of terms, but the agreement is there.  How odd is that?

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Dear Kat,

Yes, the time phenomenon is very strange, but I’ll put it down to being intensely present.

More puzzling to me is the sense of union, of experiencing another being that is not me and not you; at the same time, I am also aware of myself.  This has happened to me just a few times in my past, but with you, it’s a regular occurrence.  It’s puzzling because I have no place in my scientific cosmology for it; my brain says maybe it’s the experience of chemicals designed to promote pair bonding such as oxytocin or vasopressin.  Maybe it’s a hallucination, a desirable illusion designed to promote sex and reproduction.  It’s just a subjective phenomenon, a trick of the light.

Against this, there is the claim of many mystics that we are all one. “I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together” (even though that’s from “I Am the Walrus”, a deliberately meaningless song.)  But then again, maybe those 40 days in the desert affect the brain.

And lastly, I say no, this is my primary experience.  There is only experience in our world; all those theories are ways to explain and classify our experience, so ignoring my experience in favor of the theories classifying it is a dangerous route.  Here, I also have to refer to the Enlightenment Intensives, the epitome of chopping through words to reach the direct experience.

So I have this dialogue in my head and this experience in my body, and sometimes it makes me feel like this.

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My Dear Kat,

Yes, yes, it’s Valentine’s Day, but you have enough of that elsewhere.

Instead, I want to explain exactly what we are trying to do here.  You see, gentle readers, Kat and I are so very content with each other in a way that few other couples are, and we think that this model is uncommon in today’s world.  Instead, the talk is all of struggle, of gender wars, of having to work on the relationship, that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.

We aren’t like that.

And if we aren’t like that, it means it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s only that way if you make it that way.  It is nothing to do with your partner; it takes two to argue.  You can disagree on what to do without arguing; even if your partner does, you needn’t participate.

So here, we’re trying to give a sense of what life is like when an alternative style is chosen, and to say that yes, it’s not a myth, it can be done.

Just do it.

Kit

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My Dear Kat,

This morning we spoke of people who act like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  We have both had partners like this.  One moment, everything is fine, then POW!  Something sets them off, and someone unrecognized appears: maybe hysterical, maybe furious, maybe withdrawn.

There are several ways we react to this.  One is to defend against the attack, to fight back, to deny the accusations.  A second is to feel guilty, to feel the attack is justified in some way.  Maybe I should have called her back?  Maybe I shouldn’t have said that?  It’s easy to react this way because sometimes we do screw up, and in such cases, this is the only way out.  A third way is to try and fix it, to do whatever it takes, because she is your partner and she is in pain, and because you want normal service to resume as soon as possible.

It was with A., a very volatile partner, that I first noticed the rock.  When she got angry, I wouldn’t let my self get dragged in.  I would not let myself be affected by it.  Oh, there were times it went on so long that I reacted in anger at the whole mess, but in general, I could just let it wash over me, could wait it out.

– – – – – – –

I write about all this because we don’t do it.  Ever.  In its place is a constancy, one that we both remarked on after getting to know each other.  I love the consistency.  Of course there is variability: sometimes you are tired or ill or quiet, but I never feel that you have changed in how you see me.  This knowledge is so very peaceful and calming.  Thank you.

Kit

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